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Driving Under Influence: Alcoholic Drinks

Volume 473: debated on Wednesday 12 March 2008

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many (a) arrests, (b) prosecutions and (c) convictions there were for drink driving in (i) Lancashire and (ii) England in each year since 2000. (193592)

The arrests collection held by my Department covers persons arrested for recorded crime (notifiable offences), by main offence group (for instance, violence against the person, sexual offences, robbery, burglary, theft and handling stolen goods) and police force area within England and Wales. Information on summary offences is non-notifiable and as a result not covered by the collection.

Available information held on prosecutions and findings of guilt for offences of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs for the years 2000 to 2005 (latest available) is provided in the following tables. 2006 data will be available later this year.

The data provided cover drink and drugs offences combined, as volumes of prosecutions and convictions for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs cannot be accurately established:

Prosecutions at magistrate courts and findings of guilt at all courts for offences of driving etc after consuming alcohol or taking drugs1, within Lancashire police force area, and England, 2000-05

Number of offences

2000

2001

2002

Proceedings

Findings of guilt

Proceedings

Findings of guilt

Proceedings

Findings of guilt

Lancashire police force

2,879

2,564

2,570

2,304

2,928

2,599

England

89,329

79,671

89,172

78,684

95,275

84,456

Number of offences

2003

2004

2005

Proceedings

Findings of guilt

Proceedings

Findings of guilt

Proceedings

Findings of guilt

Lancashire police force

3,014

2,652

3,019

2,706

2,995

2,723

England

98,522

87,392

100,048

89,904

96,587

87,482

1 Data provided covers summary offences of driving etc. after consuming alcohol or taking drugs (which cannot be reliably distinguished separately).

Notes:

1. It is known that for some police force areas, the reporting of court proceedings in particular those relating to summary motoring offences, may be less than complete.

2. Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken lo ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used.